According to a 2005 report conducted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Vietnam has the second highest rate of deforestation of primary forests in the world, second only to Nigeria.[1][needs update] The use of defoliants during the Vietnam War had a devastating and long-lasting impact on the country's forests and ecology,[2] affecting 14-44% of total forest cover, with coastal mangrove forests being most affected.[3]
However, regarding total forest cover, Vietnam has undergone a forest transition: its forest cover has increased since the early 1990s, after decades of deforestation.[4] As of 2005, 12,931,000 hectares (the equivalent of 39.7% of Vietnam's land cover) was forested, although only 85,000 hectares (0.7% of the land cover) was primary forest, the most biodiverse form of forest.[5]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ Butler, Rhett A. "Nigeria has worst deforestation rate, FAO revises figures" Archived 2009-06-18 at the Wayback Machine. mongabay.com. November 17, 2005.
- ^ Westing, Arthur H. (September 1971). "Ecological Effects of Military Defoliation on the Forests of South Vietnam". BioScience. 21 (17): 893–898. doi:10.2307/1295667. JSTOR 1295667.
- ^ "Vietnam's forests on the upswing after years of recovery". Mongabay Environmental News. 2016-12-11. Retrieved 2024-03-20.
- ^ Patrick Meyfroidt, Eric F. Lambin (2008). "Forest transition in Vietnam and its environmental impacts." Global Change Biology 14 (6), pp. 1319–1336.
- ^ "Vietnam Deforestation Rates and Related Forestry Figures". Mongabay. Archived from the original on 3 March 2008. Retrieved 2024-03-20.
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